Michel Gondry

“When I do a video it starts with an idea I may have just had in the morning and then I do it... And obviously I know some ways to manipulate the images or to create the effects in camera, which I think people usually do these days, but they can use on film.” -Michel Gondry on his creative process.

Though his first cinematic effort, Human Nature (2001) wasn’t as well-received as he might have hoped, Michel burst into the international spotlight with his 2004 effort, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey, Elijah Wood and Kate Winslet. Michel has additionally shot acclaimed music videos for artists such as Foo Fighters, Radiohead and The Vines.

MAGNETISM

Michel has made no secret of his past relationships and their influence on his work. The Science of Sleep, for example, was shot in the same apartment building in which a former girlfriend and his son reside. He’s never had a problem incorporating elements of his own life into his films, and there’s little doubt that Michel’s checkered past with the ladies has heavily influenced the man he is today.

SUCCESS

Michel has accomplished a lot in his lifetime. He’s been active within the entertainment world since adolescence, dabbling in the worlds of filmmaking and drawing as a teenager. By the time he was in his 20s, Michel had already acted as a drummer in a popular French band, directed some of their music videos and established himself as a talented animator in his own right.

Michel has subsequently become a jack-of-all-trades who has never been limited by his own imagination, something that was particularly evident in The Science of Sleep. The film, which features a series of increasingly inventive animated sequences, established Michel as a filmmaker who’s not afraid to play around with the traditional rules of cinema.

Michel Gondry Biography

Michel Gondry was born on May 8, 1963, in Versailles, France. The son of a hippie and a pianist, Michel was encouraged to pursue his artistic side at an early age and it quickly became evident that his talents lay in the world of animation. He would spend hours working on increasingly complex and creative flip-books and, using his father’s Super 8 camera, also spent some time animating quirky short films.

Michel’s interest in photography began at the age of 12 and it became clear to those close to him that Michel possessed a real flair for virtually every artistic endeavor he got his hands on. By the time he graduated from high school, Michel knew that he wanted to give a career in the arts a real shot and he consequently enrolled in a Parisian art college. It was also around that time that Michel joined a band called Oui Oui as a drummer, and when the time came for the group to film a music video Michel seemed to be the obvious choice.

michel gondry works with bjork

Michel spent the next several years creating videos for his own band and various local musicians, and in 1993, Michel received the break he’d been waiting for after Bjork spotted one of his videos on TV and asked that he direct the clip for her song “Human Behavior.” The video won acclaim for its groundbreaking use of animation and live-action. Michel soon found himself working with such renowned musicians as Lenny Kravitz, The Rolling Stones and Sheryl Crow. Spurred by his newfound success, Michel moved to London in 1994, and began taking on jobs as a director of commercials -- working with companies such as BMW, Coca-Cola and Heineken.

michel gondry moves to new york

Eager to explore more opportunities and job offers, Michel relocated to New York City in 1997. Despite the fact that he understood very little English at the time, Michel was booking one music-video gig after another and it wasn’t long before Hollywood called. Michel knew that he wanted to eventually jump into the world of feature films, but was adamant about remaining true to his exceedingly creative sense of style. Spike Jonze -- director of Being John Malkovich (1999) (starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz and John Malkovich) and a friend of Michel’s --introduced the Frenchman to an up-and-coming screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman and the two quickly discovered that they shared a common interest in quirky filmmaking. Specifically, Charlie was looking for someone to direct a screenplay for Human Nature (2001), and it became clear that Michel was the best candidate for the job.

michel gondry directs human nature

In 2001, Michel applied the various skills he had learned over the years and successfully brought Charlie’s Human Nature screenplay to the big screen. With a cast comprised of folks like Patricia Arquette and Rhys Ifans the film premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival where it immediately divided critics. Some declared it a work of genius while others called it a flat-out mess. The film has since become a cult favorite and gave Michel the calling card that he used to secure funding for future feature-length efforts.

For his second feature, Michel decided to once again collaborate with Charlie Kaufman, although this time Charlie worked from an idea that Michel himself had come up with. The result was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which starred Jim Carrey as a heartbroken man who chooses to have all traces of his former girlfriend (played by Kate Winslet) physically erased from his memory. Unlike Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was almost uniformly praised for its compelling story and fiercely original visuals. The film, in addition to its financial and critical successes, brought Michel an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay which he shared with co-writers Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth. A year later, Michel tried his hand at non-fiction with Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2005), a documentary revolving around comedian Dave Chappelle’s efforts to hold a street festival in Brooklyn.

michel gondry directs the science of sleep

Regardless of his lucrative living as a director, Michel continued to shoot commercials and music videos whenever he was free. In 2003, Michel won a legion of new fans with his eye-popping and strangely hypnotic video for The White Stripes’ “The Hardest Button to Button” (which was, much to Michel’s delight, parodied in an episode of The Simpsons). In 2006, Michel -- working with his own screenplay -- emerged with The Science of Sleep, the most personal film of his career and undoubtedly the most experimental. While not as widely praised as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep cemented Michel’s status as one of the most inventive and creative directors of his generation.

In 2008, Michel’s Be Kind Rewind will cast Jack Black as a video-store clerk who must re-film famous movies like Back to the Future (1985) and Disney’s The Lion King (1994) after he accidentally erases his stores' stock.